New, nastier python enters Everglades fray

[ensho]

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/1243680.h...


Discoveries in West Miami-Dade have scientists worried about a new, potentially more troublesome species of python establishing itself in the Everglades.


-snip-

And this constrictor makes the Burmese python that has already pushed deep into the Everglades seem almost cuddly. The snake is the African rock python, a relative similar in size, appearance and appetite but considered much more aggressive.

``They are just mean, vicious snakes,'' said Kenneth Krysko, senior herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. ``You couldn't get a worse python to become established. A Burmese python is just a docile snake. These things will lunge at you.''

-snip-

But a recent string of finds nearby -- all centered around the swampy southeast corner of Tamiami Trail and Krome Avenue -- strongly suggests the rock python has settled in, said Robert Reed, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado, who is working with Krysko, Everglades National Park and other researchers on efforts to control the constrictors.

-snip-
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and neighborhoods are their next door neighbors

[dugaresa]

1. to be honest, they should stop selling pythons in pet stores

as a gardener, I am very careful about what I plant. I don't want to destroy native habitat by introducing exotic and uncontrollable species. Luckily most nurseries have stopped selling invasive species like loosestrife, etc.

Same should be done with pythons. They aren't native, and they are apparently pets that people dump when they can't handle them anymore or the "charm" wears off. Time to put a stop to it. I view it the same as keeping a chimp as a pet. Seems so novel, but it just isn't right.

So many times people choose novelty over practicality and or common sense then they don't know how to back out of the situation.

[fishwax]

4. ah, but this snake looks like it'd make a great pet

Might get expensive to feed, though. Apparently they eat deer:

[dugaresa]

7. well now you convinced me

I have been having problems with deer eating my young trees, that could help!

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. .

[maxsolomon]

2. perhaps if we introduced elephants into the N. American ecosystem

we could get the woolly mammoths back in short order.

[asjr]

3. I'm pulling for the dodo.

[Winterblues]

6. I saw a documentary about science doing just that.

getting the woolly mammoth back that is. Not about reintroducing the elephant to America. They discovered a baby mammoth buried in the ice in almost pristine condition and want to use it to clone the mammoth using an elephant as the host.

[bertman]

5. Time for a big-time African Rock Python hunt.

[felon]

9. I am a collector

& breeder of exotic snakes & they are right. The african is an aggressive one. I don't agree that we should stop selling them. Just that we should use more responsibility when selling them. There is already a permitting process in the state of florida as well as many other states. Florida should just make it mandatory that all snakes like these be micro chipped when in the store & owner info be registered with the state. Kinda like buying a gun. Then if they catch one in the wild scan it & fine the owner. Their is no reason to punish everyone for the negligence of a few. The one thing that i hate in this country is the mentality that has become normal which is to punish all for irresponsible few.

[xultar]

14. Agreed, they should also fit them with a transdermal radio transmitter

so they can be found easier.

Do they make a radio transmitter that is small enough to go under the skin?

[felon]

18. sure they do

and i forgot about them. They already tag burms in the wild in FL. so they can be monitored. I also agree with blindpig that they should not be imported. If we do away with importation & require all species to be tagged while at the breeders then transfer registration like gun sales. Then we eliminate the problem. Well their will always be someone out there that can get around the law. ie. removing tags, disabling them & so on, but it would definitely reduce the problem.

[blindpig]

16. Another idea.

Stop all importation.

Stop taking from the wild for commerce, period. Feed the retail trade the various morphs and 'designer' forms, they are much less likely to get established in the wild.

Eliminate all invasive populations.

I am of the opinion that the Burmese population in Florida originated in the Miami warehouse area, where all the big herp dealers are. I believe that some dealers took to importing big, gravid females, got the eggs, and dumped the momma in the canals, damn things are unsaleable anyway. I know that was done with Green Anacondas, imagine they couldn't stand the winter.

Capitalism has fucked up herp keeping like it fucks up everything else. Back when it was just a handful of dedicated geeks things were pretty chill, nowadays any dingbat with a whim and a few bucks can purchase damn near anything, to the detriment of the animal and the environment.

Oh yeah, those rock pythons are mean as hell, but relative to the Burmese it ain't such a big deal.

[AngryAmish]

10. mean as a snake?

[deaniac21]

11. I'm thinking one of these would make a great set of matching

shoes and purse.

[juno jones]

13. That's an idea.

Get enough people hunting Florida python for shoes and purses it will become endangered or extinct in no time! (only half-jokiing)

[Dappleganger]

12. Next time we get stuck out in the 'Glades in a broken-down airboat

I'll make sure to announce this to the rest of the group.

Yes, we actually did get stuck once for about 2 hours.

[ddeclue]

15. Do they look like this?

[TxRider]

17. Wonder how much they would pay to hunt them?

They should offer a bounty, and let hunters extinct them.